Keeping neighborhoods alive and vibrant at theAcademy of Art University

If you are one of the top art and design academies in the country, where you are located - and how you look - is a picture worth 1,000 words.

The Academy of Art University's snapshot illustrates not only the school's dedication to unique and cutting-edge design, but also its devotion to keeping the integrity of its neighborhoods alive. And that's not easy to do when you have 40 different locations tucked throughout San Francisco's diverse neighborhoods.

AAU operates 23 academic and administrative buildings - with over 1 million square feet of instructional and administrative space. The Academy also provides 17 residential buildings with capacity to house more than 1,700 on-campus residents.

It's a far cry from the Kearny Street loft where Richard S. Stephens started the school back in 1929. The rent was a whopping $150 a month.

From its downtown administrative headquarters on New Montgomery Street to classrooms and dormitories in SOMA, South Beach, the Upper Tenderloin, Nob Hill and Fisherman's Wharf, the university has woven itself into the fabric of the San Francisco community, pledging to blend in and enhance the character of the neighborhoods it calls home.

That is very apparent at The Cannery, San Francisco's iconic brick building complex down near Fisherman's Wharf. Hamid Ghayour-Faraji, owner of the Waterfront Bakery located there, says he - like many other tenants - was thrilled when AAU leased the property.

"It was very nice for the neighborhood," he says. "It went from darkness to light."

He said he was especially happy at how fast needed repairs took place.

Another historic site that the university recently leased was the former California Culinary Academy at 625 Polk St., located just outside the Upper Tenderloin.

Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, says the energy that students, faculty and staff bring into the neighborhood helps revitalize the area, in that it can only improve the businesses and restaurants around there.

What impressed Shaw so much wasn't the fact that AAU leased the building, but the character of the students it brought with it.

He worked with Professor Tom McNulty and some of his students on a project to "rebrand" what is known as the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District. It was a full-fledged marketing effort, complete with posters, stationery, mugs - "everything you need for a successful campaign," Shaw says.

Shaw says he was "blown away" by the effort the students put into the project, and the high expectations Professor McNulty had of them.

"Those students treated us as paying clients," Shaw says. "You don't expect that from people who are not yet professionals. It really showed how seriously the university takes all its projects - in the classrooms and out of them."

That comes as no surprise to Douglas Tom, an architect with Tom Eliot Fisch, who has worked on many projects with AAU over the years. "They just do things right," he says, from the technical details of wiring to maintaining and creating architectural elements that blend into the neighborhoods. "They help bring about transformations that enhance neighborhoods, rather than take away from them."

Tom notes that, as an art school, the university has different needs than many other academic institutions. "You need big rooms and a lot of technology. That can be a major task, but AAU works to keep the integrity of its buildings intact," he says, citing several buildings, including one on Washington Street and others down in the South Beach area.

The university's management practices are consistent with its mission to preserve historical structures from demolition or commercial redevelopment, such as St. Brigid's Church at 2151 Van Ness and the former YWCA residence designed by Julia Morgan at 620 Sutter.

It's not just academic buildings that the university embraces. Many of the school's on-site students live in dormitories spread throughout the city that are connected by a strategic network of shuttles. And some of these residence halls are structures that were built during the early 20th century, restored to withstand the demands of 21st-century students.

It's easy for a university to make its mark in a small burg by creating a "college-town" atmosphere. It's a lot harder to create a sense of community with numerous buildings located in the unique neighborhoods of one of the most diverse cities in the world. But AAU does just that, with style.